Types of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing provides developers and IT departments with the
ability to focus on what matters most and avoid undifferentiated
work such as procurement, maintenance, and capacity planning. As
cloud computing has grown in popularity, several different models
and deployment strategies have emerged to help meet specific needs
of different users. Each type of cloud service and deployment method
provides you with different levels of control, flexibility, and
management. Understanding the differences between Infrastructure as
a Service, Platform as a Service, and Software as a Service, as well
as what deployment strategies you can use, can help you decide what
set of services is right for your needs.

Cloud Computing Models

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) contains the basic building
blocks for cloud IT and typically provide access to networking
features, computers (virtual or on dedicated hardware), and data
storage space. IaaS provides you with the highest level of
flexibility and management control over your IT resources and is
most similar to existing IT resources that many IT departments
and developers are familiar with today.

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS) removes the need for your
organization to manage the underlying infrastructure (usually
hardware and operating systems) and allows you to focus on the
deployment and management of your applications. This helps you
be more efficient as you don’t need to worry about resource
procurement, capacity planning, software maintenance, patching,
or any of the other undifferentiated heavy lifting involved in
running your application.

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Service (SaaS) provides you with a completed
product that is run and managed by the service provider. In most
cases, people referring to Software as a Service are referring
to end-user applications. With a SaaS offering you do not have
to think about how the service is maintained or how the
underlying infrastructure is managed; you only need to think
about how you will use that particular piece of software. A
common example of a SaaS application is web-based email which
you can use to send and receive email without having to manage
feature additions to the email product or maintain the servers
and operating systems that the email program is running on.

Cloud Computing Deployment Models

Cloud

A cloud-based application is fully deployed in the cloud and all
parts of the application run in the cloud. Applications in the
cloud have either been created in the cloud or have been
migrated from an existing infrastructure to take advantage of
the
benefits
of cloud computing. Cloud-based applications can be built on low-level
infrastructure pieces or can use higher level services that
provide abstraction from the management, architecting, and
scaling requirements of core infrastructure.

Hybrid

A hybrid deployment is a way to connect infrastructure and
applications between cloud-based resources and existing
resources that are not located in the cloud. The most common
method of hybrid deployment is between the cloud and existing
on-premises infrastructure to extend, and grow, an
organization's infrastructure into the cloud while connecting
cloud resources to the internal system. For more information on
how AWS can help you with your hybrid deployment, please visit
our hybrid page.

On-premises

The deployment of resources on-premises, using virtualization
and resource management tools, is sometimes called the “private
cloud.” On-premises deployment doesn’t provide many of the
benefits of cloud computing but is sometimes sought for its
ability to provide
dedicated
resources. In most cases this deployment model is the same as
legacy IT infrastructure while using application management and
virtualization technologies to try and increase resource
utilization.

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